1. Technical Field
The present invention relates in general to the field of computers, and in particular to personal shopping devices. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to a method and system for preventing theft by signaling the status of a transaction on a personal shopping device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Shoplifting, while a perennial issue that currently costs American retailers $26 billion a year, is an area where retailers fear that the acquisition and deployment of personal shopping devices will lead to further complications and loopholes in security. Simply stated, many retailers fear that the adoption of personal shopping devices will lead to additional opportunity for theft and fraud, because fewer employees will be in contact with a purchase transaction and employee contact will be reduced to a smaller portion of the time during the transaction.
Prior art solutions to combat fraud become less appropriate in a personal shopping device-enabled environment. For high-cost items, the solution of having the store clerk remove a transmitter tag after purchase, makes little sense in an environment where machines are designed to remove a clerk from the purchase transaction. Similarly, the traditional solution of visually monitoring for theft by checking the contents of a shopping cart against a receipt is manpower intensive. Additionally, it interferes with the intended purpose of personal shopping devices: allowing the consumer a friendly and quick shopping experience; ideally one in which they never need to have their purchases checked by store personnel. Further assignment of personnel to monitor purchases on the personal shopping device as a solution to shoplifting suffers from the poor visibility (at a distance) of transaction status in prior-art personal shopping devices.
Prior art solutions do not include adequate measures for deterring attempts at false purchases, fraud, and theft in the use of personal shopping devices. As the number of persons interacting with the transaction is reduced in the prior art, prior art solutions increase the opportunity for theft, fraud, and false purchase attempts. What is needed is a method to detect false purchases by both honest and dishonest consumers using a personal shopping device.